Free-standing collapsible frame structures are well known. For example, various types of free-standing collapsible frame structures are known, such as those having a dome or A-frame shape and which when erected, can be used to support tents.
Free standing collapsible structures may also be used to support infant's toys such as beads, rattles and mirrors within reach of an infant for purposes of promoting infant activity and improving babies' hand-eye coordination.
For example, one known device suspends toys within the reach of an infant in a supine position from an overhead frame consisting of a crossed pair of arches. The device is comprised of a square cloth mat having pockets in each of its four corners suitable for receiving one end of an arch. The arches may be fiberglass rods housed within a cloth sleeve. The tension supplied by the bowed arches has the effect of making taut the cloth mat. When the arches are raised so as to cross each other diagonally over the center of the mat and attached to one another at their cross point with a snap or similar connector, a free-standing frame structure results. Beads, rattles, and other dangling toys may then be clipped to the arches, whose cloth sleeves may have holes or loops to facilitate attachment. Babies may thus lie on their backs on the mat and play with the toys dangling from the frame overhead.
When it is desired to collapse the known device for storage, one of a number of collapsing techniques may be used. In one technique, the arches may be detached from one another at their cross point and folded flat against the mat, so as to collapse device into a secondary single plane. The ends of the arches may be left in the corner pockets of the mat, with the struts remaining bowed. In this position the device still has a footprint that is as large as the mat itself, as the bowed struts continue to apply tension to all four corners of the mat. This large footprint has drawbacks for storage of the device.
In another technique, it is possible to fold the mat in half in a direction away from the arches and to lock the mat in this folded position using snaps at the corners of the mat, with the ends of the struts still in the corner pockets of the mat. This serves to reduce the footprint of the device, however the footprint may still be undesirably large.
In another alternative, the ends of the arches may be removed from the corner pockets to further reduce the storage profile of the device. In this case, the struts may “unbow” to resume their original (straight) form, and the now fully detached mat may be folded or rolled up around the unbowed struts. Although this will reduce the footprint of the mat, the length of the unbowed struts may complicate storage.
An alternative collapsible frame structure, that can be useful for example for supporting infant toys would therefore be desirable.